


Run For Your Life

by Lady_Ganesh



Category: Yami No Matsuei
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Dark, Escape, Gen, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-27
Updated: 2011-09-27
Packaged: 2017-10-24 04:06:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/258816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aoi thought she could be free. She was wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run For Your Life

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://whymzycal.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**whymzycal**](http://whymzycal.dreamwidth.org/) for the beta!

Hokkaido was cold when she stepped off the train, but that was all right.

She'd been so tired of it. Tired of the life. Tired of hiding herself, of putting on fake smiles for countless men. She wanted to be Aoi again, not one of the painted whores of the Kou Kaku Rou. She didn't want to see another kimono as long as she lived.

She was somewhere new. That was what mattered. Here she could just be Tanaka Aoi again. She could scrub floors or wait tables. The world was full of possibilities again.

She could kick the drugs. That part was easy.

Getting out was the hard part. Girls had tried it; they'd usually come back, a little smaller and more dead-eyed than they had been before.

But the old master had finally died. Things would change now; the young master hadn't said as much, but it was obvious. He was so different in temperament, and he'd never as much as visited any of the other girls. Watanabe-sempai said he met with a man in the courtyard sometimes, some old guy with white hair.

She'd waited for one of the busy nights to slip out. She hadn't taken much, just what she could grab from the restaurant cash box when no one was looking and a small bag.

She was glad she'd taken a sweater.

She had enough to stay somewhere, she thought, for a night or two. By then she could get a job. She was still young, not like the older ladies who were only good for waiting tables or half-dead from too many drugs. The Kou Kaku Rou hadn't broken her yet

She bought a newspaper at the stand by the train station and read through the want ads, checking prospects with a pencil someone had left on the bench. She could say she'd worked at a restaurant before. It was true, mostly. She could clean. (A man had once paid her just to scrub her own floor while he watched; she shook her head and tried to push the memory away.) She'd be all right. This one said _apply in person._ She had nice clothes and could do that in the morning.

She'd be all right. No more hiding men's secrets. No more reeking, demanding strangers. No more having to giggle and blush on cue.

She'd be free.

A man smiled politely at her. "Hello," he said. "Do you mind if I sit here?"

There wasn't much room. She nodded.

"You're a long way from home, aren't you?"

Her heartbeat picked up, and she tried to think of anything that might have identified her as an outsider. Her sweater was simple, unadorned; perhaps her shoes were impractical for the weather? Her feet were cold--

"Aoi-chan," he said, and his fingers wrapped around her wrist. His eyes were light grey and cold behind his glasses.

She froze.

The man had white hair, but he wasn't old. Up close, he looked quite young, and the grip on her wrist was much stronger than his build would suggest. "Where did you think you were going?"

"Who--" She tried to catch her breath. "Who are you?"

"A friend of the Kou Kaku Rou," he said, and his hand tightened further. "I think we need to talk, don't you?"


End file.
